Theft onboard aircraft carrier under construction: NIA arrests 2

Some hardware components have gone missing from the under-construction Indigenous Aircraft Carrier at the Cochin Shipyard Ltd.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested two persons in connection with the theft onboard the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) under construction at the Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) here.

The NIA is learnt to have nabbed the two from Bihar and Rajasthan on Tuesday night. They are likely to be brought to Kochi on Thursday. Even though officials did not disclose the identity of the two, it is learnt that they were engaged by a contractor for painting work as part of the IAC project two years ago.

The NIA had taken over the case from a special investigation team of the police that had initially found that the theft was an insider job and that the hardware components that went missing were standard computer components available in the market.

The components were part of the carrier’s Integrated Platform Management System (IPMS), which is used for monitoring and controlling the platform’s hull and its mechanical and electrical systems. The special investigation team had taken some fingerprints from the crime spot.